Hello Reality and all that is True
When Oxymoron was defined it was just for you

Posted 19 June 2014 - 03:15 AM

Frank Merton, on 18 June 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

Yea, I have to say I was at first attracted to them by the sensibleness of their approach to the Bible, once you accept their premise that the Bible is infallible. They would take a passage and compare it to another passage and try to work out why they seemed to conflict and then find a way around it all. Their meetings are quiet and intellectual and studious and not emotional hardly at all, although they do use testimonials a lot, which I consider under the belt.

Of course their utter inability and unwillingness to recognize modern biology soon soured me, and the falseness of their attacks on evolution (taken I'm sure from other fundamentalist groups). That and the fact that a lot of their ways of dealing with passages in the Bible that didn't fit their message struck me as stretching things way too far.

I must say I am curious how the group has evolved: my last contact was back in the 1960s.

It was 1975 but they kept changing the date after that. How do I know? My father's 2 sisters were devout Jehovah's Witnesses and the elder one wanted to know why my parents were moving us to the other end of the globe when the apocalypse was only 5 years away (we immigrated to Australia in 1970 when I was just 3 years old).

When that date came and went and we subsequently visited in later years there was always another apocalypse date due, my dad, not surprisingly developed a very dim view of religion in general as a result of all these goings on.

However, I still adore my aunts and just see their views as, well, "eccentric".

"I warn you, whoever you are, oh you who wish to probe the arcanes of nature, if you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither shall you find it outside.
If you ignore the excellencies of your own house, how do you intend to find other excellencies?
In you is hidden the treasure of treasures, Oh man, know thyself and you shall know the Universe and the Gods."

Hello Reality and all that is True
When Oxymoron was defined it was just for you

Posted 19 June 2014 - 03:34 AM

Aneksi, on 18 June 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:

You've forgotten that blood is sacred. Each living soul is sacred, and to consume it, is taking and of the lifeblood of another you do not have the right to. All life belongs to God, so to take blood is to take a life from God. i know people view this in may different ways, but life IS sacred. Without blood, the body would die. it is not just a liquid. No matter the faith, or culture, it is to be respected.

Blood offered in hospital to the sick is provided by willing donors. If blood is sacred, then the donor is offering an intimate and sacred gift to the receiver - sharing their very soul according to some. I think that is absolutely beautiful and at the root of true sacrifice. I absolutely respect and praise blood donors every time I hear of how someone was saved by their precious gift.

"I warn you, whoever you are, oh you who wish to probe the arcanes of nature, if you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither shall you find it outside.
If you ignore the excellencies of your own house, how do you intend to find other excellencies?
In you is hidden the treasure of treasures, Oh man, know thyself and you shall know the Universe and the Gods."

Reading the Bible passages quoted in a much earlier message, I see nothing there that tells me the soul is the blood. I really don't think that is the JW view either, since I clearly remember them quoting Genesis, "and the man became a living soul." In other words the deny the actual existence of a separate soul and instead identify it with the living being.

I think the JW result is indeed sad, and has no doubt led to the premature death of some people, and to the division of some families. The NT command to "abstain from blood" seems in the context of not participating in blood rituals. The authors of Acts would have had utterly no conception of blood being used to save lives medically. This then is an example of stretching a passage to include meanings not really there. If one is to take the Bible literally, then one does not do that.

No holy text on earth can be taken infallibly. This is where all religions go wrong. People live their lives on EVERY word as utter gospel. No prophecy has a black and white interpretation. Yes, dates have been altered. Unexpected, but we can not expect to understand the real reasons why, that's why faith comes into it. Did people really think that through reading the bible they'd be all knowing? The whole point of the bible is to SHOW that only God is all knowing. To claim a prophecy is false just because it didn't happen at the stroke of midnight like expected based on ONE rendition of the interpretation, does not mean it is a false prophecy. No matter how precise Heaven is, the knowledge has still been left in the hands of imperfect humans. The Watchtower Society are run by people. It is inspired by God, but inspiration is not absolute. They make rules and behave according to how they believe works best. You can't expect it to always be right in this system. I feel the same for all branches of Christianity, and in turn other religions that believe themselves to be the only correct religion.

Also, I have researched the definition of soul, life, blood and all manner of things in the bible. The soul is not JUST blood, it is more complicated than that. Without blood, the living human soul would be dead. Blood gives life. But it also begs the question. Who deserves to live? And who deserves to die? It is not in our right to decide that. Hospitals try to heal people, but they can not stop death. All it really is, is trying to cheat death, which will happen no matter what. At the core of Jehovah's Witnesses belief system, is Armageddon, and the Resurrection. They do not view death as a permanent stasis. Only God can GIVE life, because humans have forfeited the right to hold power over life and death following Eden. The Crucifixion was to pay for the sins of all humans.,. he paid with blood, and so the symbolism of blood, that Jesus claimed the lives of all righteous people back from Satan, means that to give blood to someone, is saying "I believe this person should live" no matter what God says. We don't know who is deemed righteous in God's eyes, any more than what happens after we die, when prophecies are meant to be fulfilled or when Armageddon is to come. It isn't easy to understand or accept, but for JWs, it is just.

Edited by Aneksi, 19 June 2014 - 05:08 AM.

We can never be anything more or less, than precisely what we are.

Death is nothing to us. For when we are, Death has not come; and when Death has come, we are not.